The Bechdel Test
by Crystal Spinning
Summary: 'As everyone stared, she gave an ironic smile. "That's right, my dedicated colleagues. The Maze Trials have gone co-ed."' When a single, key variable is changed in a last moment whim of the Creators', the future of the trials - and the subjects - are permanently altered... for better or for worse. Eventual pairing.
1. Hedy

High heels clacked and clipped rhythmically down a long, barren hall. Through several of the doors, faint voices could be heard. Some yelling, some laughing, some heavy with the whirring of machinery and clicking of keyboards. Turning abruptly to her left, Ava Paige entered the door designated as "Control Room A".

It was silent, but for the occasional murmurs. One of WICKED's longest and most extensive research experiments would be beginning any moment now, and each individual was eager to prepare for the oncoming daily effort of tracking both the physical and neurological movements of the first batch. The Chancellor faced her scientists head on, staring down the room at some of the greatest minds the world had to offer. Or at least, the remaining few who could offer their services.

"We've come to the decision," she said gravely, referring to herself and the previous Director, who had been forced to 'retire' just days ago. "…to change one final, last-moment variable in our experiment in order to maximize the brain waves that will stimulate our required results."

Surveying the room before her, including her young geniuses, her protégé and her secret favorite, she nodded, noting their surprise and concern.

"The groups have been swapped slightly, in order to create a more varied response in their brain patterns."

Teresa looked up from the data she'd been entering. "Which variable are you referring to, specifically?" Thomas's face was intent, as if he were focusing on communicating with her. The boy had always been obvious – he was not a natural like Teresa.

"Albert, George, and Stephen have all been moved to Group B, swapping out with original Group B members Hedy, Alice, and Saph. The members of each group will continue to swap on and off at every other designated drop-off date. The reason is the same as we originally discussed – purely homosocial relationships will not provide the most accurate data, particularly considering that the immunity seems to have little to do with the sex chromosomes. Sexual orientations and gender identities notwithstanding, we have decided that it will be more appropriate for a… mixed bag, as it were." As everyone stared, she gave an ironic smile. "That's right, my dedicated colleagues. The Maze Trials have gone co-ed."

"What if it causes a distraction?" little Tom asked directly. The scientists, primarily older and careworn with the stress of the work they were doing, did not giggle. This was not a group of teenagers skirting around the issue of sexuality. They all had a stake in this. Some of them had children in Group B – it would not be impartial if they were able to observe their child within the Maze – some were fearful of becoming ill, and some were Immune themselves, and filled with questions.

So she answered, equally as directly, sending him a faint, reassuring smile. "That is none of my business, and in fact could be _more_ desirable. We are simply presenting another variable in order to collect the requisite brain waves to study for our research. This changes nothing; indeed, it adds a single variable. We're simply switching their classifications. Regardless of whether any 'relationship' between subjects of different genders is irrelevant to us. We are not here for a sociological experiment, but for a purely neurological one."

Each person before her nodded in understanding. It had been a point they had debated for a long time. The Director's word was final. She was not just an intelligent, shrewd woman, but also trustworthy. With Ava Paige as the head of WICKED, their research was going to be thrust through even more rigorous trials. The Flare must be stopped.

"Have they launched?" someone asked, just as she turned. Dr. Leigh. She nodded at her, gently. Dr. Leigh's youngest sister was in the first batch for Group B.

"Ready your screens," she ordered, returning to her own perch. "As of thirty seconds ago..." she checked her watch. "Our most comprehensive test ever has begun."

x

_Claustrophobia_ was the first thing she felt, jammed into someone's arms as she stumbled back, blinking heavily despite the severe lack of light. A hard chest broke her fall – but it was softer than a wall or the ground, and she was grateful, though she couldn't see her own hand in front of her, her vision was so blurry. Somehow, that worried her. Was it a vitamin A deficiency? Was she trapped with these people? Who were these people? Did she know them? Why couldn't she remember? Thoughts streamlined and she couldn't order them, couldn't prioritize her thoughts, only felt herself panicking.

Around her, she felt the milling and panicking of several others as her vision cleared. It was a group of teenagers. A half-dozen of them, maybe, but she didn't know if it were five or seven or even more that she couldn't sense with her limited abilities. She blinked, feeling nauseous, before realizing that the rushing and whirring that zipped through her ears _wasn't_ just the adrenaline pumping through her, the blood throbbing through her ears and heat passing over her skin in waves. They were moving – quickly. She moved from the arms of the stranger, whose hands had moved to her shoulders to steady her, and she blinked. Swallowing the bile that threatened to exit her throat, feeling disoriented, she realized the others – whoever they were – seemed to be just as off-kilter as she, with someone moaning and hiccoughing. Just _what_ had happened to them? Was this temporary?

Her eyes adjusted fully, and as she gained her equilibrium, she decided it was an elevator, ascending. To where? It felt like they'd been trapped there forever. In fact, they had been, she thought. The longest thing she could remember experiencing was this ride.

"Does anybody know where we are?"

Her voice sounded relatively normal, which was surprising because her head felt so jumbled and sick. What had she expected, a croak, a hiss? But this was the first time she could remember speaking. Those were her first words. Her voice was low for a woman's. She knew instinctively that she was a female, but she couldn't remember any details. In here, she could not see the shade of her skin, couldn't recall the shape of her eyes or the color of her hair.

The boy next to her, the one who'd supported her, stiffened at her strangely loud question. "No."

She didn't have time to register his voice as a chorus of young voices followed. None of them knew _shit_.

"_What_—" she cursed, before being interrupted. The machine groaned before hitting a stop, nearly knocking her face-first into the group. The only thing that kept her planted on two feet was the shoulder just in front of her, and she was grateful for the steadiness the boy was providing. She was pressed against the wall – something was digging into her back, the corner of a box. Her knees felt weak and she felt oddly grateful for the touch of another person, even though she did not know him or see him.

But light cracked through, and she suddenly panicked. All she wanted was to escape this tiny hole. To see. To breathe air that didn't smell like… sweaty feet.

"Let's get out," she grunted, sliding past her immobile companions and opening up the doors, clawing at them in her desperation to get to that sunlight and fresh air. It worked – the boy who'd held her steady moved to help her, and together, they pried open the door before bursting out, climbing up. The others quickly followed, and the brightness of the light blinded her. Still, though, she and the other one helped the others climb out. One boy, who was so large he nearly pulled her back into the crate, apologized profusely.

"What in the buggin' world…" the boy next to her breathed, already standing straight and gazing around. Catching a better look at the kid, she noted his appearance. Tall. Thin. Blond hair. With that though, another thought followed. What did _she_ look like? She almost panicked at that recurring thought, before whirling around to check out their surroundings.

There were… well, _goats_ were the first thing she noticed. At least two of them, wandering around and baa-ing.

And pigs.

And animal shit, everywhere. Animal shit and flowers and trees and great stone walls. The sunlight overhead was beginning to be blocked out by the enormous barricades that shut them in – wide gaps directly in the middle of each wall. A box, fencing them in, she thought, shivering a little. In her limited memory, she couldn't imagine anything as tall as those walls. Maybe a skyscraper, she thought, an image flashing across her brain. This wasn't a campsite. Her mind filled in the blanks of what a regular campsite should look like, but she realized she had no memories if she had ever camped, if she'd ever had friends or family to camp with.

As though on cue, someone began to cry.

"Shut up!" another boy snapped, his voice tense with frustration.

"Bein' an asshole won't do anything to stop it..." someone else said to him: a girl, a tiny girl who looked like a child because she was so miniature.

"What in the world is happenin'…?" the thick boy besides her breathed to himself. "Okay!" he clapped, gathering their scattered attentions. "First off, seems as though we'll need introductions! I'm…" the boy stopped for a moment, making sure they were all listening. "I'm Nick." He said it with little hesitation, as though he weren't sure himself. With so much unclear and simply missing from her mind, it seemed like a relief to have a name at all.

Trying to seem at ease to quell the panic within her, she introduced herself next. "Hedy."

Funny, she hadn't even thought it. The words just came out. It was easy as knowing that grass was green, that the sky was blue. She hadn't thought it – she'd only responded to the question as naturally as she breathed. Hedy, like _heady_. The _headiness_ of the memory, of the identification, satisfied something within her. Maybe she didn't remember what she looked like or why she was here with these apparent strangers, but she had a name.

The introductions went around, and they all knew their names. Besides Nick and herself, there was Newt, who'd helped her stand steady and open the doors, Saph, Minho, and Alice, who was the one crying.

Nick was a wide-boned boy with dark skin and green eyes. Saph was a tiny, light-skinned girl with a small smattering of freckles across her cheeks and her hair shaved close to her scalp. Minho was a belligerent looking Asian boy, while Alice was slender with tight, curly hair that sprouted recklessly from her scalp in a gorgeous black halo.

The observations left her panicking. _What did she look like_? She was definitely much taller than Alice and Saph. She felt more at ease meeting Nick in the eye – were they the same height? He was shorter than Newt, very much so, and shorter than Minho, but much taller than both other girls.

Even as she frantically thought, she recognized that at the moment, had other worries. Perhaps they were all thinking the same thing as her and selflessly holding in all of their questions. She should do the same.

It was well past midday, she could tell, squinting up at the sun as the others wandered a few feet away, gazing around. Here, it seemed like they had no shelter or food: just an enormous, empty meadow, surrounded by walls and with the silence only broken by bleats and snuffling, from both animals and children. It was plain and empty, with the exception of the elevator in the center, where they'd burst from. She peered in at the boxes there – they should gather them out, but she and the others were in a quiet daze - except for Alice's hiccoughing.

She asked Newt to help her grab the boxes, and he quietly agreed, stepping into the elevator quickly and willingly, handing her the lighter boxes. One held several colored cloths, and nothing but that, in all different colors. Just about to ask for Nick's help, too, Hedy turned - but was cut off by the earth-shaking rumble that vibrated beneath her feet - and nearly pissed her pants when the huge openings that periodically punctuated the walls around them... _closed_.

It was a sudden noise – one moment they were chattering in an anxious, terrified way, but suddenly they were silenced by the shaking of the ground beneath their feet and a blood-curdling groan. It came from nowhere – Minho jumped a foot in the air and the crying girl had seemingly fainted, collapsing into the earth. Newt caught her eye, looking tense. Hedy wanted to cry, but she simply stood near Newt, the height of him poking back above the ground. His solidness was comforting. Had they been supposed to leave? Was it something they'd missed? Were they trapped forever? There were so many boxes in the dark, dank space. Was that all they'd been given?

Watching the dimming sunlight begin to hide behind walls that seemed to touch the sky only added to her claustrophobia. She didn't like this. She felt the hysterical terror of being shut in a small space and squeezed tears from releasing from her eyes. Crying wouldn't solve anything right now. If anything, it would impair her.

Still, she couldn't stand to be around the others. She couldn't stand to be around _herself_ in the flurry of terror and confusion she felt. The chatter rose up. It was amazing, the noise so few could make.

"We'll get through tonight."

She looked up.

Nick was speaking with authority, and Newt climbed out, watching him, looking forlornly at the boxes within the dark space. "We have plenty of supplies, it seems. Until we can figure out what's buggin' happenin'."

"Is anyone else exhausted?" Alice asked, her voice conveying just how tired she was from her resting spot on the ground. "Should I just sit in the grass? Like, where are we gonna sleep tonight?"

"Let's set up beds." Hedy decided. "Like… hammocks or something. There's a bunch of trees over there. I think these cloths are long enough to tie up."

"I can do it." Nick offered.

"I can too," she agreed. "We should all sleep and not worry about everything else just yet. Let's try to avoid goat shit, too. God knows what in the world we're gonna do with that."

The exhausted girl agreed, and the three of them trudged over to the edge of the meadow's clearing, tying back a half-dozen, their fingers clumsy and shaky. Nick rested in each of them for a second, checking if they were sturdy enough to hold any weight. Immediately, Alice claimed her sleep, practically throwing herself into the first hammock available. It was a thick fabric, and Hedy's mind betrayed her, bringing back an image of hammocks that were white and thick with holes, almost like an afghan blanket. These looked far more comfortable than the ones in her head.

"She passed out quickly," Nick noted. She agreed, silently, but did not blame the girl. If only she could sleep, even if it were only to escape what was happening. The excitement of the past few minutes was too much for her.

She was starving, though. "Are you hungry?"

"_Yes_." He said it so fervently she wanted to laugh, but she couldn't quite manage the sound.

Rejoining the group, just as the sun was completely blocked by the enormous wall, she scowled. They needed light to see what they were doing. "Should we start a fire? I don't see any wild animals, and there's not much we can do."

Newt agreed. "We're buggin' caged in here – don't have to worry about that. Seems like it'd be pretty comfortin' at this point. Safer, at the least." It was a false optimism, but they all took it.

She waited. "So does anyone know how to set up a safe fire?" The four others faced her, looking as unsure as she felt. "Do we just need wood? We should probably set up a designated section for it."

"You said that like you think we're gonna be here for a long while." Nick accused, his frown even more prominent in the shadows of late afternoon.

She didn't know how to defend herself, but Minho cut in: "She's probably right about it, too. This doesn't exactly seem like a freaking camping trip. We're here for a reason."

"Let's not talk about that just yet." Newt intervened, placing a placating hand on Nick's shoulder. He was a good head taller than the scowling boy, who shrugged off his hand. "For right now, let's just figure out a good place for the fire."

"I'll get some wood." Hedy spoke. She suddenly didn't want to be around anyone else. When Newt offered to help, she didn't shake him away, though. He seemed temperate. Minho also agreed and the three of them went to the southwest corner of the walled-in meadow. The woods covered two entire sides of the walls, with a nice little creek running through it, but she was too exhausted to wander around anymore. She tried to find firewood on the ground, but it seemed like it wouldn't be that easy.

"Does anyone happen to have grabbed a knife?"

Minho pulled out a dagger easily. "I found this in the boxes of stuff we had. Seems like it could cut through branches."

"Let's not grab stuff until tomorrow, aye." Newt said. Suddenly, before either of them could answer, Newt shrieked, dropping the weapon and leaping into the tree that Hedy had already climbed into.

"What's your problem?" Hedy blinked at him. "Are you okay?"

"It's a bloody _bug_." Newt's voice was disgusted, but she couldn't tell if the emotion was directed at the bug or at himself. "But it's a bit nasty looking…" He trailed off. "What…" he grunted and jumped back himself. Swinging down quickly, Hedy demanded for the two others to point it out.

"It scurried away," he shuddered. "Looks a bit off, didn't it, Minho?"

Minho just scoffed. "Don't be a sissy, dude."

She smiled. "They're just as scared of you as you are of them."

But Newt shook his head. "That wasn't a regular creepy-crawly."

He said it with a seriousness that made her shiver, trying to imagine a bug large and disgusting enough to warrant that reaction.

Minho rolled his eyes. "It's no weirder than five hundred foot walls that close by themselves."

He handed the knife to Hedy, who began screwing at the wood. Grunting and groaning, she forced the weapon through the branch and many more after that, until they each had an armful. Holding their bounty, they dragged it back the center of the meadow.

Nick had already begun the fire and was glad for their extra branches. "Should we wake Alice?" Saph asked, beginning to scavenge for food in the boxes they'd already brought up.

They stared for a moment at the sleeping girl, hardly a few yards away. Maybe she was fifteen. Maybe she was hungry, or maybe she'd lost her appetite. Maybe she was pretending to be asleep. All they knew for sure was that she'd chosen to rest in the hammock – she'd left the circle and dropped to sleep. She deserved to have her privacy, whether it be to sleep or cry. "Let her rest. We can feed her again tomorrow. She's exhausted." Hedy said with certainty. She only knew that because she felt the same way.

Nick nodded his head. "If she doesn't eat, she won't until morning, unless she finds something for herself."

Agreeing, Saph, who'd found a package of hot-dogs in the Box, had begun humming, loudly. It was a specific tune, but none of them could place it, could remember any words. It was strange, the way their memories worked. Why couldn't they remember anything? Newt had joined in, too. Growing as exhausted as Alice had sounded, Hedy sat, smiling, feeling the warmth as the fire grew.

Just as her hotdog was finished cooking and Saph tried to hand it to her, though, she was fast asleep on the grass in front of the small fire, warmed by the flames and the feeling of togetherness she was getting from the others, who were just as lost as she.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **

So I decided that having a grand total of one speaking female character in the Maze Runner novel was bullshit and now I am writing this fanfiction to remedy that.

The title is a direct reference to the "Bechdel Test". For a film to past the Bechdel test, there must be more than one named, speaking female character, who have a conversation about something that is not a man.

Hedy is named after Hedy Lamarr, a golden age Hollywood actress who invented frequency-hopping technology in WWII, as a Jewish woman. She was also called the most beautiful woman in Europe.

Alice is named after Alice Walker, most famous for her novel "The Color Purple" and is a human-rights activist.

Saph is named after Sappho, a famous ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. In the nineteenth century, the words 'sapphic' and 'lesbian' were derived from her name.

Basically, all female characters in this fic will be named after women who I think are cool and important.

I also chose Minho and Newt to be in the original group because they're not only fan-favorites, but characters with distinct personalities, and I am not a fan of making things entirely OC. I chose to use Nick instead of Alby because I wanted to leave some other important characters in Group B, whom this fic is not about. My reasons for putting everyone in a group of six for the first box are as follows: it was easier, I think it wouldn't stimulate enough brain waves for WICKED's research to have one guy alone for a month, because character dynamics are important, and because I feel as though James Dashner's timeline and numbers and general vague shit could be clarified.

Enjoy. x.


	2. Tim

"Wake up, everybody!" Alice sang, the high sound ringing through Hedy's ears. She groaned and tried to turn – and promptly flipped off her hammock, landing hard on her stomach, knocking the wind from herself. They'd tied them relatively low to the ground, but she still felt the impact hard on her chest. She'd also landed on a root.

"I'm embarrassed," she groaned to herself, torn between embarrassment, exhaustion, and hunger as giggles erupted around her. After someone had been kind enough to carry her to bed, she'd still made an ass of herself.

"You're a buggin' mess." Newt's voice above her, superior and fighting laughter, made her blink her eyes open, scowling at the rising sun. Newt and Nick stood above her, Newt grinning and Nick carrying a slight smile that softened his features.

"Five more minutes or I'll die." Of embarrassment. She tried to ignore the chattering voices, curling into the soft earth. A high pitch giggle sounded next to her. She turned slightly to see Alice flipping her hammock back into its proper position.

"C'mon now, breakfast and a full day's work ahead now." Alice said cheerfully, a complete turnabout from the attitude she'd had the night before. Whatever she'd done to conquer her terror, Hedy wanted to try it. If it had been sleep, Hedy wanted to try it right this instant.

"Yeah, we got big plans, gorgeous!" Saph called from a few feet away, digging into one of the unloaded boxes.

It was an almost cheerful morning for everyone, but Hedy sat and brooded over the breakfast of under cooked eggs. She disliked the texture and the taste and she was irritated by the rising sun in her face and the excited, almost panicked chatter around her. Either this situation still sucked, or she just wasn't a morning person. Or both.

"Alrighty." Turning to listen at the chipper voice, Hedy swallowed a bite unwillingly and drank from the water Saph had brought up from the creek and boiled. The small, alert, and prepared young girl clapped her hands, same as Newt had done yesterday, though the gesture seemed somehow commanding on her in a manner he hadn't conveyed. Everyone immediately quieted to listen. Inane chatter, really. It was hard to remain in shock when the situation before them seemed so permanent. They didn't have time for shock, only for movement. After they got themselves together, that's when they could weep and figure everything out. "We need to set up a fence for those pigs, and a section for the goats, too. We need a spot that's near the center, but not too near our beds. Also, we should name them."

"There's the creek down by those trees, maybe there." Minho supplied, wolfing down the plate, scraping it with his fork.

"Better to plant there." Newt said, his mouth full, a little bit slipping out and falling back onto his plate. Morosely, Hedy watched her plate's contents slowly dwindle. Rubbery, dry, and without seasoning. Anyway, the texture of eggs in general seemed rather chewy and unpleasant to her anyway. She wondered what she liked to eat.

Nick glared at them all, unwilling to repeat his words from the night watched him. His eyes were dark and angry, but mostly they showed just how downright scared he was. With the heaviness of sleep still hanging over her head, she understood him better than yesterday – they all had the common ground of _fear, _though Alice and Saph and Minho and Newt were able to hide it.

But they needed to keep busy.

Better to be busy than sit around, starving and asking unanswerable questions. Better to prepare. Who knew how long this warm weather would last? Hedy distinctly remembered snow covered trees. It was an image that flashed before her mind during the night. Snowmen. But nobody she'd made them with, nobody she'd walked with along icy roads, no snowball fights shared between friends or parents to make hot chocolate with. For the second time, she felt tears sting her eyes. She stood, suddenly, leaving her food. There was only a few bites left anyway, and she was disinterested in meals right now. Maybe when they figured out the stores, there'd be better food.

"Are you gonna eat that?" Minho, who had suddenly appeared at her side, asked. When she shook her head, he took the plate that she proffered, but he didn't eat it like she'd expected him to. She didn't know why she expected that – language, she supposed, still held the same meaning and context. They hadn't lost their communication centers, despite whatever else had been tampered with. Was his meaning implicit in his words, or was she just making an assumption? Had she been asked that question before? He looked at her, still holding the plate in front of her: "You should try to."

She blinked, surprised at the advice. Despite his attitude, he seemed even-tempered enough. Nick, who had been silent all morning, agreed. "You're gonna need strength for whatever is happening regardless."

"Is it too early to throw a hissy fit?" She asked, a little wryly. "Someone start talking. Distract me."

"Distract all of us." Newt answered, smiling at her softly, his front teeth a little crooked. It was a nice smile, full of friendship. Already, she liked this tall boy, friendly and level.

"So, buildin' a pasture." Saph continued when nobody else spoke. The silence was awkward, but Saph plowed through easily, not feeling the strange burn of the quiet. "We need wood. No, not _your_ wood, Minho, so stop scratchin' at your junk in polite company." Alice giggled at that, but Saph wasn't waiting for laughter, continuing blithely a she gathered the dirty dishes."Maybe 'bout a food taller than the pigs? However tall they are. 'N keep 'em all around the same height. How big should we make it for just two?" It was her thinking aloud, not asking a question. "We can always expand it later, too. So get about... twenty. Then find the longest sticks you can, 'bout as thick as your hand, 'n get as many of those as possible. Somebody start going through all of those boxes, see what we have and how we can organize that. You big, beefy men," she pointed at Nick, who blushed and scowled, though his face wasn't as hard as usual; Minho, who smirked; and Newt, who hid a grin at the title - Saph was the smallest of the group, not even five feet tall and on the underweight side. Her elbows looked like jackknives. "Go get what I need. Gorgeous and Giggles, we're unpacking."

"I don't appreciate the title." Alice said, pouting, understanding immediately which one was her. Hedy smiled a little at that – she wasn't even sure what color her hair was, cut short as it was, but it was a reassuring nickname, even in a place where frivolous things like that seemed irrelevant. She looked down at her arm now, registering the deeply tanned shade.

"Princess, I'll call you all sorts of things." Saph winked gaudily, and turned away, nagging at Nick and Newt to hurry and finish the breakfast she and Alice had made so she could wash the utensils.

"Who put her in charge?" Minho wondered loudly at her, though she either didn't hear him or chose to ignore it.

Hedy shrugged neutrally, watching him stand and brush pieces of egg from his pants. "She's right, though. But I'd rather help with the pasture, get it over with. Like a bandage." The image came from nowhere - the pain of glue being ripped from skin, like... tape.

"Good that. Now, who gets to decide the nicknames? I vote for mine to be Big Beefy Man 1. Of all of them, my name's the most accurate." Minho flexed.

Hedy looked down at herself. "Well, I don't have any mirrors, but I think I look pretty tough." She flexed a bicep of her own, watching the muscle bulge from her arms with gratitude and distinct pleasure. Tough enough to gather wood, at the very least. "We need to get this done, and it'll be better in pairs."

"Tough, but with the face of a buggin' angel." Newt complimented her they moved towards the trees. The words didn't sound cheesy – they sounded genuine, and she found herself feeling fond of the tall boy. Even if it was bullshit, positive affirmation was exactly what she needed to bring her mood up. A small smile quirked despite herself, the left side of her lips moving upwards automatically.

"Thanks, doll," she said sarcastically, trying to hide her smile. "Now you can tell me I'm pretty all day, but come on and hand me a knife while you're at it."

The names meant nothing, she knew that. What good was a pretty face right now? As far as they knew, they'd be here for weeks, and there would likely be no access to anything like a mirror. As far as she knew, they were all being sarcastic and she was an ugly fool, but it was irrelevant. She sawed at the first appropriate branch they found, with Newt pushing down on the outer part of the branch, to snap it more quickly, when Minho, working with Nick, said thoughtfully: "Y'know, I've been thinking about this hellhole. I think... it's an experiment."

Hedy would've fallen out of the tree if it weren't for Newt's steady shoulder, keeping her in place. "_Please,_" she spluttered at him in disbelief. If anything, she thought, this was a _prison_.

He scowled, resenting her laughter at his idea. "Like… there's a purpose to this. This isn't real life. It can't be!" he ended his statement with an insistence that had Hedy staring at him, suddenly sympathizing a little more with his idea. "I was thinking about what I can remember… I remember things just fine, but no people, no specifics." His brows were drawn tightly together, his lips pursed. Everything about his face suddenly seemed anguished, though she doubted he would've been happy to

"I can't remember my family, but I remember my name, and hot meals." Nick said it quietly, finally contributing to the conversation. "I understand. Everything's vague."

Hedy groaned at the melancholy discussion. If they kept at it, she'd cry, and she didn't want to do that. Not now, not in a week, not when they'd settled, not ever. "Can we just... do this for now? I don't want to think about this." Whether they were a part of a prison or an experiment, she wondered what they had done to deserve this, and if they'd consented or if anything was real. Vague stories came to mind – the story of a turtle, the story of a rib, but she found herself unable to remember details. It was frustrating, to grasp at straws and have them fall from her fingertips.

Minho scowled again, but didn't push the issue. They remained quiet and methodical, with Hedy and Minho climbing branches, as Newt and Nick pulled and gathered them into a pile.

"That's twenty of the kind she specified, right?" Nick counted.

"Yeah, and now let's get the others."

The four of them collected the branches and found some hammers and nails in one of the boxes.

It took hours to create - and the most difficult part was chasing the animals. She and Alice had been trying to coax one of the enormous pigs, whom Saph had dubbed Chub, into the pen before they finished the last few feet - they couldn't quite manage to create a door - when one of the goats began bleating and chewing at Alice's clothes.

Shrieking, the girl swatted at it, running as quickly as she could. The animal followed her desperately around the clearing as she shrieked and cried. While Saph, Minho, and even Newt nearly collapsed in laughter, Hedy and Nick chased after Alice, trying to get her to calm down. The girl wouldn't listen, and eventually climbed a tree, leaving the goat disinterested and wandering off to go lay down.

"It's gonna kill me if I come down!" Alice wailed, hugging the branch she was securely settled on.

With a roll of her eyes, Hedy called up: "The goat is asleep, you can come down."

"Why goats? Why not sheep? Why not a cat or a dog?"

"Just get down. Saph's making dinner right now." They'd skipped lunch, opting to save food and time. Instead, they decided on an early dinner, with Saph, the self-dubbed chef, their new cook. Already they'd been numbed. The opening of the walls had been commented on excitedly, but by the time they'd closed, they'd learned the truth. They weren't being kept in. Something was being kept out.

By the end of the first day, they were comfortable with one another. By the end of the first week, they were taking shifts doing laundry and unsurprised by one another's accidental nakedness and body fluids.

Vomit, they'd seen a few times. Saph had thrown up with the sheer effort she was exerting. Hedy had stumbled across Newt squatting against a tree. Alice cried – often. Once, Nick had laughed so hard at one of Minho's antics he'd pissed himself. None of it bothered them anymore. They had zero sense of social norms any longer, what was considered polite and what wasn't.

There were instincts that weren't lost – wearing clothes, basic hygiene, and the lingering feeling of teenage awkwardness.

Nick was the oldest – seventeen, perhaps. Alice was the youngest, hardly older than fourteen. They were guessing, all of them, based on their looks. However, it seemed to be more instinctive than that. Saph, though she was small, was sixteen, they decided. Newt, Minho, and Hedy guessed they were about fifteen. There was a rather large margin for error. For all they knew, Saph was eighteen and Newt was fourteen. They decided on their ages, arbitrarily. Perhaps they'd change their minds later, deciding on older or younger, as they got to know each other and themselves.

Life was a guessing game.

It continued like that for several weeks. The supplies that Alice and Saph found were packaged neatly. Tools: some lumber, hammers, nails, real saws, hoes, shovels, watering cans, seeds and animal feed. Actual bedding, some food – perishable, unfortunately. Spare clothes that seemed to fit them all perfectly. Toothbrushes, which had Hedy rejoicing internally. Scissors, a sewing kit, a hairbrush, medicine.

"We stink." Minho said bluntly, one day, a few days into their sentence, as Hedy privately thought of it. "We need to build a bath tub or something."

So far, they'd been sleeping in their hammocks and washing their spare clothes in the stream, laying them out to dry in the sunniest part of the field. Any bathing was done quickly and reluctantly – the water was always cold.

"Even if it's worthless, even if it doesn't matter in the end," Hedy said it firmly. "We need to be busy." They'd all agreed. They'd tilled a huge garden and begun to plant, as well as building a – rather haphazardly constructed – where they cooked the little food they had. It was hard at first, the rationing – their stomachs growled desperately in the morning.

It was just when they'd begun getting used to everything – themselves, each other, the environment – when the scream of the Box, dropping off new weekly supplies, also happened to have a person in it.

x

They'd settled into a morning routine: Saph and Alice would cook - mostly Saph, but Alice was a ready and willing helper - and Hedy, Minho, Nick and Newt would wash their clothes, quickly. There was no sensitivity. Handling boxers and bras was commonplace. This was not a place to be embarrassed. After, they' eat, and then they'd get to work, feeding the animals, brushing them, watering the crops – and soon admiring the sprouts – and trying to figure out how to get their new hens to lay eggs and make butter from the round churner that looked positively ancient. But it was something. And it kept them busy. Despite all the fuckups and arguments and confusion, they were distracted from the looming possibility that answers were not coming anytime soon - or ever.

After four weeks exactly, Hedy and Nick were frowning at the carrots they'd pulled. "Why are they so small?" he scowled at his harvest.

"Maybe we planted them too close together?" Hedy wished desperately for a book that could dictate why the carrots they'd so proudly watched grow hadn't developed past the size of their pinky nails. "We can't eat this. Maybe put it in a stew, but it's not much."

"We can try shucking some corn, see if they're any better." Nick suggested. "The tomatoes look better, at least. They'll be ready soon."

Shaking her head, she answered: "The corn probably won't be ripe yet. They're too hard, still. Let's use Alice's idea, though."

"Shovel cow klunk over here?" Nick wrinkled his nose. The idea of fertilizer still seemed a little strange to him. Hedy wasn't fond of that word.

She wasn't sure when they'd moved from saying 'poo' or 'shit' and begun saying 'klunk', but she couldn't fight the satisfaction she felt when rounding out the syllables of 'shit'. The harshness of the _sh_ sound and the snap ending of the _t_… it was a perfect word in her opinion. But Minho, whose vocabulary was even more colorful than her own, kept being reprimanded by Alice to find other words. So instead of shutting his damn mouth, he tried inventing ridiculous words, to prove to her how arbitrary her scolding was.

Alice had offered safe alternatives: 'fudge' instead of 'fuck', and 'darn' instead of 'damn', but Minho, apparently an aspiring creative, had gone forward another step, replacing 'shit' with 'klunk' – "Because it sounds like the noise it makes when it lands," he'd insisted, thinking it was hilarious. Hedy didn't quite hear it on her own bathroom excursions, but she let it happen. The others picked up the word as well, though Newt's vocabulary was already pretty interesting.

The shrill noise that alerted them to the Box's attendance went off. Nick hadn't quite gotten used to it, though they'd all become accustomed to the walls by the second evening. Days passed in seemingly no order. All six eagerly ran to the Box, to see what offerings had been left that week. After the ringing ceased, and the creaking slowly finished, Hedy and Newt got into position. It was tradition for them to open the doors. They needed little extras like that, little pieces that made them feel like a family.

Nick and Minho watched them open the heavy doors and drop in, Newt first, with Hedy right behind him. Every week, their supplies, which mostly consisted of food, water, and extra nails and screws, had been dependable, though getting smaller in size as their crops got larger, and it was always a relief. Another same-old-same-old of living in the Meadow. But lately, Nick had admitted to feeling like they should be preparing for something. Brushing it off, the others – including Hedy – had chalked it up to paranoia. Nick was the darkest of the bunch. At least, the most vocally dark.

Until Newt gasped, halting.

Hedy, eyes adjusting to the dusty darkness, tried to see what he was looking at.

"What is it?" Nick leaned in, hand on Hedy's shoulder, peering past Newt when they saw it.

A body.

"It's a _boy_." Hedy looked up at Saph and Alice, her voice tinny as it echoed. "He's unconscious... but he's alive."

"Well, shucking wake him up!" Minho ordered impatiently.

"A boy?" Alice murmured, a little fearfully. Saph did not admit to any emotion, eyes wide as saucers.

"He's a shuck." Newt's voice was tinny.

"What?" Nick blinked at the slang-term suddenly being thrown around, distracted from the immediate task. To him, _shucking_ was a verb, synonymous with husking. It was something that meant corn, food, plenty.

"Out cold." Newt explained, and it made sense to Hedy. An empty husk. That description definitely fit the boy.

"Pull him out, then!" Saph bossed, hands on hips. "Remember how traumatic the Box was for us? Get him outta there!"

There was a shout from within the Box, and a bang. The four remaining outside peered in.

"He's bloody awake." Newt grumbled, unnecessarily. "Oi, shuck, what's your name?"

"I'm Tim…" the voice was timid, cautious, high pitched with anxiety. "Who are _you_?"

"I'm Newt," he gestured at himself. "This is Hedy," she waved. "Out there are some more of our friends." His voice was suddenly gentle and calm, and he stuck out a hand to the frightened boy. "Do you want to come out and meet them? It's a bit dusty in here, huh?"

The boy stepped into the sunlight, thin and dark haired and maybe sixteen, older than all of them except maybe Nick, who could be seventeen. He looked perfectly healthy and strong, with nothing hurting him but the familiar skittishness that they'd all experienced. He looked at Hedy and smiled timidly, and did the same to the others, who were quiet and as unsmiling as she.

Taking up the role of mother-hen, Saph stepped forward. "Hey there, greenbean." She said it kindly, softly, as though he were a frightened, wild animal. "You said your name's what?"

"Tim…" he said it quietly, but the mechanical echo of the Box was gone, letting his voice free. He spoke louder. "My name's Tim."

"Alrighty, Tim. That's Nick, our big boy. You met Newt and Gorgeous, but this is Giggles." Saph had immediately adopted a motherly tone.

"Alice," the other girl corrected, smiling a little at Saph's effort to invite him into what had become an easy dynamic between six people who'd gotten to know each other very well in very little time. Everything for him must've been out of sorts.

"You heard her. And Minho, but don't worry about him. He's not as scary as he looks."

"My good looks can be kind of intimidating," Minho admitted breezily. "But what's a handsome face in the Meadow?"

"The Glade." Nick said, looking disgusted. "Meadow has such a nice ring to it. Doesn't seem to fit."

"Good that," Minho smirked a little at Nick's comment. They'd gone numb to it. This was just the average, everydayness of their lives now. This boy didn't have that privilege. "So, I bet you have a ton of questions."

"We'll get to that later." Nick interrupted. "For now, let's unpack our stuff and let this guy get settled. Don't want any explodin' brains here."

"Want somethin' to eat?" Saph asked kindly. Hedy didn't know how she did it, but the self-appointed cook had kept them alive for the past month, with no deficiencies. All of them were strong and sturdy – maybe healthier than they'd been before. "Or somethin' warm to drink?"

"Let me take you around first," Hedy shook her head at Saph. "Show you everything. Then we can grab you a bite and a place to sleep. You must feel... strange."

A little startled, a little sheepish to admit his fear, Tim nodded. Motioning for him to follow, Hedy led him away from the others. They'd need to discuss what to do with him, what the implications of his presence were. So she took him away from that. Perhaps Saph would be better at it – she had a knack for always knowing the right thing to say – but when Hedy had been in his position, all she wanted was a break. That's what she gave him. A break. Not even a tour.

They sat at the edge of the empty woods. Nothing had been put there yet. They weren't sure what to put there. For now, it was just a quiet place to grab a moment of solitude.

"Just take a minute," she told him steadily.

Looking at her unevenly, his eyes began to well until he cried, folding his body into a ball and shaking, crying and hiccoughing and swiping at his face almost angrily.

"Where are we?" he wept desperately, his voice small and rough. "Why can't I remember anything? I don't understand!"

She let him cry. Nobody came after them, and she suspected they understood why she'd taken him away, to privacy. "I don't know. None of us know. We came here, the same way you did."

Crying harder, it was a few moments until his next question. "Will I remember?"

Heavily, feeling the weight of the word on her tongue, she answered him. "We still don't have our memories, and it's been a month. For whatever reason, it's permanent memory loss. All we have are our names."

It took perhaps half an hour for him to finish crying. They sat silently together, and she hugged her knees.

"Why are we here?" his tone was helpless, hopeless.

"We don't know," she replied, feeling tears sting her eyes and a lump grow in her throat. Blinking and swallowing, she stood and offered a hand. "Saph... she'll cook you up some food. You're probably starving."

"Is my face all puffy?" he asked, sounding embarrassed but taking her hand.

"Yes," she said, honestly. "But Alice cries almost every day, and we all want to about as often. So nobody will say anything."

Still holding hands, they began to venture back to the others. "Thanks, Hedy." he said quietly.

"We're family," she said firmly. "And now that includes you."


	3. Alice

"…Thanks for… the meal." Tim's voice was quiet, still timid and shy.

Looking up from stamping down the fire, Saph grinned. "Not a problem, Greenbean."

"Again with the _g__reenbean_?" Newt looked up from his plate, looking as though he thought she'd gone a little off.

"Y'know, something that's green." Saph looked at them expectantly before elaborating. "_Fresh_. A _greenie?_"

Five faces looked at her blankly.

"C'mon, y'all must've heard the term before, somewhere in those klunk-for-brains," she urged them. "Even Minho, somewhere in there."

"First of all, I object to 'klunk-for-brains'—" he began.

"It's a farm term." Nick interrupted. "I've heard it - well, at least, I think I have. Fittin' nickname."

Shooting him a victorious smile, Saph winked at Tim, still hanging, gangly and unsure of his place. "So, _Greenbean_ it is."

With a small, shaky smile, Tim inclined his head, grateful and a little awkward. "Uh… good night, I guess."

They waved him off.

It was an unspoken social cue that they wanted to talk without him - _about_ him - and he had picked up on that. He could sense it in them, the closeness that had already been forged between them. So he left, to cry and sleep, much the same way Alice had done just thirty days earlier - indeed, had just a few nights ago, after Minho had called her a crybaby.

The group of six faced one another, firelight flickering, creating shadows that danced across each of their solemn expressions.

Of course, it was Minho who spoke first.

"I think we should explore outside the Walls."

He was utterly serious, she could tell, but Nick rolled his eyes in unison with her. "Sure. Go dancing into hell. We don't know what's out there, _shank_."

"Exactly why I wanna go out there." Minho insisted.

Hedy and Alice exchanged a glance. Generally, Minho had a way of convincing them all to do what he thought was best. She didn't know if it was innate leadership or his own bratty-little-brother relationship he had developed with Nick, but either way, it didn't work on her. While he was convincing and intelligent in his own way, his ideas did not often sit well with Hedy.

"The walls _close_ at night," Hedy scoffed incredulously. "That implies either that we're being kept _in_ - which probably isn't true because they open during the day - or that something is being kept _out_, which is more likely," she said scathingly, and he shot her a glare.

"Okay, but if the walls are only closed at night, that means whatever is being kept out is nocturnal," he argued. "We have maybe two square miles of space to our names and no memories. Doesn't this feel like total bullshit?"

"It feels like a _prison_," Alice put in quietly, her high-pitched voice soft and squeaky, silencing them. "It feels like, before, we must have done something terrible to deserve this."

She and Minho quit bickering at that. The solemnity of Alice's words was not lost on them. Minho had shared – often – his idea that they were being experimented on. While it made sense, it felt too sci-fi to Hedy, unrealistic. It was far more probable that they were in a prison of some sort – but how and why had their memories been taken? It was the technology that fascinated Hedy. Who had built these walls? How had they managed it? Why had they done it? And what did the six of them have in common?

It certainly wasn't their personalities. Nick and Hedy tended to be more standoffish – or awkward, to hear Alice put it bluntly – while the other four were outgoing and talkative.

It wasn't their athletic skills – Saph had proved that her running speed was nearly the same as her walking, and Alice could hardly pick up her food, her upper body strength was so underdeveloped.

It wasn't their ethnicities, either, particularly since Newt had an accent quite unlike any of the small differences in the other's tongues, proving him to be quite foreign. Neither was it their race, either – Newt was white, Minho was of some sort of Asian descent, and Alice and Saph were black. Hedy wasn't fully sure what her nationality was, and neither was Nick. No countries came to mind, only vague continents. Asia, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, Antarctica. No associations came with that. No understanding of any traditions or culture, any common economic systems, anything but the instinctive knowledge that had been bred into them. It was like their names or their patterns of speech – unconscious. Even though they had no specific memories, if too much was taken, they would be blank slates, unable to walk or talk or survive. There was a logic to their memory loss, a pattern to what had been stolen. Everything in their minds, prior to the Meadow, was wholly… _impersonal_.

"I want to go out there so we can figure out just what the hell this is." Minho articulated himself gently to the now-weeping Alice.

"That's a _ridiculous_ idea—" Hedy began, but Newt slowly nodded.

"It sounds a bit rich, but I agree," he admitted, his accent thickening. "Even if we get nothin', at least we buggin' tried. You have to agree with that, right Hedy?"

Before she could summon up an appropriately scathing response, Nick interrupted, broodingly: "Even if you go, you can't go alone, Minho. Buddy system."

"I'll be his bloody buddy," Newt said firmly.

Hesitatingly, Saph's voice broke through. "It's gonna be dangerous, more likely'n not."

The tiny girl was so rarely solemn that everyone else was taken aback. Even Alice's crying stopped, so interrupted by Saph's words.

"For one thing, we dunno what it is. It's a corridor, definitely, but other'n that, we're shooting blanks." Funny, Hedy noticed, that little expressions flowed so easily, idioms remained unforgotten, but the context in which they'd been created was lost. "I say that even if you do go out, you should go out when the Walls first open. Leave a trail, too."

"What are you saying?" Nick stared at her soberly, as though he were suddenly seeing her for the first time.

She bit her lip. "It's a weird theory, but that place can't just be a giant hallway. I'd say it leads to something – maybe more woods, something easy to get lost in."

"Like we're surrounded, and we really can't get out." Alice interrupted gloomily.

"We were surrounded anyway, shuckhead." Minho snapped impatiently, looking at Saph intently and ignoring Alice's wounded glare.

"I think you're right, Min. The key to figuring out why we're here – it has to be out there, because it sure ain't in this shucking place."

"Do you ever hear the screams at night?"

Alice's voice was cold and quiet, suddenly eerie and serious. Between the rest of them, it was rather an understanding that Alice's theatrics were different from Saph. While Saph was lighthearted, playful, constantly fighting their gloom, Alice fed into it, dramatized every tiny mishap. Molehills into mountains, Hedy thought to herself.

"What screams?" Nick demanded in disbelief.

"After the doors close… late at night…" Alice's face was downcast and her hands were fisted tightly together in her lap. "Sometimes… there are moans. They're horrible. They give me nightmares."

Firelight burned her features into a deep contrast, orange against black, moving in a way that almost transformed her, aged her. So rarely were Alice's concerns coherent that they all took note, even Hedy, who generally dismissed her. She did recall that once, Alice had woken her up with muffled weeping. When she'd asked the sobbing girl what the problem was, wondering what could have possibly happened, the girl demanded to know who had been screaming.

_"Nobody's screaming," Hedy replied, bewildered and irritated. "Except you."_

_"No!" Alice insisted, voice a hoarse hiss. "Someone was screaming."_

_The girl thrust her arm at Hedy, revealing thousands of tiny pinpricks. Goosebumps, up and down her arm, to go with the glowing whites of her eyes and enormous pupils._

"Sure it ain't just your imagination?" Newt looked troubled by the revelation. "Situations like this… they bloody do things to ya."

"I'm sure," she insisted. For the first time since they'd woken up in the Box, Alice's tone was deadly serious. No histrionics, no tears, no shrieking or screaming or melodramatics. Just a frightened girl who worried for the worst.

"I've heard 'em."

They turned to look at Saph, who had been collecting dishes to wash later. She wasn't looking at them, and her tone was businesslike, as if she were discussing where to hang Tim's hammock. The girl was strange, and Hedy liked her quite a bit. Despite her constant, lighthearted teasing, she seemed to be brutally intelligent and knew when to cut her jokes down. Like now.

"It's like… a machine, almost. But like, a woman screaming." Alice shivered.

Solemnly, Saph nodded, finally turning to face them, her expression blank. "If we go out there… there's somethin' else out there, and we have to know what we're getting into."

"So before we go explore, we do sweeps. The first hallway – the one you can see into – we go there. Every day for a couple days we go out, check it, test the waters." Minho was speaking rapidly. "Make sure we don't get our klunk-for-brains into any hot water. Then we explore."

"Who knows what we could find out there," Newt brooded. "Good or bad."

"I wanna go out there." Alice looked up. "With you and Newt."

The reaction was instantaneous and incredulous. "_You_?" Nick demanded. Even Saph looked thrown.

"I know I'm not strong, but I can run," she insisted. "I wanna face my fear. I wanna get the hell—oh, pardon me," she lost steam as she flustered, embarrassed at her unladylike language. "I... I just…"

"_No_." Hedy said defensively, just as Minho nodded in agreement. "Minho, shut up, don't you dare."

"You don't get to give her shucking-fudging permission," Minho argued. "You're not her freaking—" mentioning family was almost taboo, and he stopped himself before he could say anything.

Ignoring him, Hedy rounded and looked at Alice, who was shrinking into herself. That very movement, to Hedy, was proof that whatever was out there was too dangerous for Alice. The girl was immature, not particularly fit, and couldn't even stand the argument around her without becoming as timid as she'd been her first day.

"Minho, _look_ at her. If you think even for a second that she's right, that there's something… whatever the shit it is, whatever is out there, you cannot send her out there. If you have a conscience, you can't let Alice go out there. It's a fucking stupid move." Hedy did not yell, but neither did she use any stupid slang words. She disliked raising her voice at anyone, so despite her harsh words, her tone was level. "Even if you wanna go risk your… your slinthead self out there, you aren't bringing Alice."

"Hey, Hedy…" Newt began, but Hedy held up a hand to quiet him.

"No. I don't care if I sound like a bitch or a shuck or whatever the hell new word Minho invented today. Both Alice _and_ Saph are serious. We haven't heard what they heard, but now we know that, at the absolute least, at night there is something there. It could be a friend, but it could also be dangerous. We could also lead it here, which puts everyone else in danger. Anyone who steps past the Walls has to be fit, in case you need to run or fight." She bit her lip. "Alice, until you prove that you're capable of lasting in that situation, I can't let you go out there. Or until Minho and Newt prove its safe."

After she spoke, the aura around the fire had become serious. They were all still seated, and just sat quietly for a moment.

"So Minho and I can scope out the bloody outside tomorrow." Newt said, standing and looking irritated. "Until then." He walked away, hands stuffed in his pockets, broad shoulders hunching. Guilt flooded Hedy, but she did not budge. It would be next to murder to let Alice out there.

Alice fled, and Nick, yawning, followed her, throwing out a good night.

"Why don't y'all help me clean these dishes," Saph said, finally. Minho and Hedy obediently followed her, washing and scrubbing the tin dishes and carrying them back.

After a few moments of tucking away odds and ends – there were hardly any bugs, but Saph was nearly religious in her devotion to cleaning up after herself – she left too, claiming she needed to comfort Alice, leaving Minho and Hedy alone, next to the dying embers of the fire.

"So why do you hate me?"

He casually moved to sit next to her, on one of the dry logs they'd managed to hack down. It had yet to rain, and the weather seemingly stayed constant. She wondered if whoever had put them there could control the weather.

"I don't hate you," she tried to inject all the surprise she felt into her voice, to show how genuine her statement was. Why would he think that? Well, she supposed she knew. Their argument from just ten minutes ago was a good reason.

"You think I'm annoying."

"I do think that," she agreed, half smiling. "But I figure you can't help that."

"So why do you always disagree with me?"

"Because I think your ideas are usually wrong," she said dryly.

Holding up a hand, he ticked off examples. "When I said this was a test—"

"It's a little farfetched," she rolled her eyes.

"When I tried to cut Newt's hair—"

"There's no way I'm letting you near Newt's neck with anything sharp."

He laughed a little and scooted towards her, wrapping his free arm around her, ticking off another finger. "When I made up 'klunk'—"

"Which is a disgusting word, and you are also disgusting," she said, and felt herself smiling a little. Thinking back, in the past month – the only memories she had – she hadn't touched anyone except in passing. When they'd climbed from the Box, when she'd needed a lift to climb up trees, when she'd held Tim's hand earlier. None of those movements had been particularly… casual, like this was. And of all of the others, Minho was the one she knew the least well.

As time passed, she and Nick had become good friends, mostly because he was difficult to speak to and the others didn't like him as well. Even in a group this small, there were different connections. Alice she hung around, too, and Alice and Saph were always together. Hedy herself found herself becoming increasingly closer to Newt. He was calmer than Alice, who was constantly verging on hysterics, and Saph and Minho, who were the group goofballs. He wasn't as negative as Nick, either, and just lacking those unfortunate qualities left her inclined to prefer his company. Additionally, though, he was also considerate and even-tempered, and she found it easy to speak to him. Not that any of them were particularly fond of sharing their innermost, deepest thoughts

Minho was right though, she realized as he ticked off another example – when he'd wanted to send a note down the Box when it left, and she'd worried about the repercussions (he'd been right, and they were all sporting a new pair of socks, and Saph had just requested a table) – they really never did get along.

She hadn't seen their relationship as antagonistic. It was simply another dynamic. The same way Nick scowled at everyone or Alice accused someone of making her cry at least once every few days. It was simply the way they were. As irritating as they all were to one another, they were all they had. Truly, they were all they had. No memories, no families, no help but the supplies that came in an elevator they had no control over and that could stop coming at any time. Nothing was certain here, and they still ha about as many answers today as they had a month ago.

"Why are you so against it?" he asked, quietly.

Realizing, with a sly smile at his cunning, that he'd cuddled close to her so they could speak without the others hearing, Hedy leaned into him. "I think it's dangerous," she said bluntly. "I think Alice would get herself killed, and honestly, I'm worried about you and Newt, too."

"Good that," she heard the teasing in his tone. Suddenly, he grew serious, the change instantaneous and a little jolting.. "But we need to start looking for answers. We've been here a freaking month, Hedy—"

"Please tell me this is not playing into your _experiment_ hypothesis."

"It's a shucking-fudging hypothesis because we don't have any _answers_ yet," he said with no little amount of frustration. "That's why we need to test it."

"Bacon," she said suddenly, a memory pinging into place.

"What?" Minho leaned back, releasing her and scooting back, twisting his seat slightly to face her more directly. "As good as that sounds, what does freakin' _bacon_—"

"That's one of the dudes who designed the scientific method. Him and..." she tried to think of more names, but the bright flash of memory had suddenly become elusive. "Y'know... observation, hypothesis," she ticked them off on her fingers, trying to summon it accurately. "Prediction, testing, analysis." She counted them off, surprised that she could remember that so vividly, but not how she knew it or where she'd learned it or if it was the right order or the right method with the right guy. _Bacon_ - why had she remembered that? It seemed something so trivial. It was like the strange recognition she had with other things - how to dress herself, what sort of foods were generally considered 'breakfast' foods, the Pythagorean theorem, idioms and lines of poetry that had no context and almost no meaning. "You're observing the Wall phenomena, making a hypothesis, and you're trying to test it. So what's your prediction?"

His eyes were dark, his expression shadowed in the dimness of the fire. It died while she stared, and everything was blank. There were no noises but Nick's steady snores and the occasional whimper from Tim. After staring at her for a long, disconcerting moment, he finally replied: "That there's a way out of here. To home."

She turned away.

Suddenly sounding angry, Minho grabbed her. "C'mon, don't tell me you think it's bullshit again—"

"I do. I _completely_ do," she replied bitingly. Looking down at the hand that gripped her wrist, she said pointedly, "Let _go_."

He released her, and she wordlessly stood. "Why?" he demanded, as if her skepticism were a personal affront.

That only made her angrier, and she articulated herself coolly. "I think we're fucking trapped, Minho. I think this is a _punishment_. Alice says it's a prison here and I agree. And I think that… whatever the hell we did to deserve being sent here, without family, without friends, without culture or real resources, without education or memory or _anything_ that makes us human… we must have fucked up _bad_."

She moved away from him, walking purposefully towards her hammock, leaving Minho in the dark, alone, to consider what she'd said.

Instead of sleeping, though, she listened to the distant shrieks of the creatures they'd – luckily – avoided so far. Maybe, though, she thought to herself as she heard the fourth and by far the closest scream, that she was speaking too soon and tomorrow, all hell would break loose.

x

"I've got a proposition for ya," Newt said the next morning, putting down his work and kneeling, looking at her intently. Her fingers were long and purposeful, with strong nails that were bitten swollen. A nervous habit.

Hands spoke a great deal about people, he believed. If not people, at the very least about the only six other people he knew in the entire buggin' world. While he had not yet gotten a chance to observe Tim's hands, Hedy's clearly spoke of anxiety, of introversion, of duty. Saph's were the same. While the smallest member of the Meadowers, as Alice had called them once, Saph also had the craggiest, most torn up hands of them all. Covered with scars of all sorts - some white, some red-purple, some blue-purple, some angry, some old, some deep and others just a thin line across the dermis - her hands were wide and short, with long fingernails that often had dirt caked beneath them. As valiantly as she tried, she couldn't keep them clean, scrubbing them every night, picking at them all day. His own were large - big, swallowing up whatever tool he was using, with fingernails streaked with white. Saph had told him it was an iron deficiency, that he could be anemic, but both of those things meant nothing to him - he had no idea what she was talking about. She checked his nails every week, to see if more spots had sprouted or if they had begun to travel towards the edges of his fingernails, to be ripped off and thrown into the grass. Alice had the smallest hands - her nails were all even, though her nailbeds were not, with torn, bloody cuticles and chapped knuckles, and they trembled, never steady. She often bled at inopportune moments - like in the middle of weeding - and complained about the pain, despite Saph's best efforts to keep her hands from drying out. Nick's hands were long - he had spider-fingers, the opposite of the rest of his frame, and they curled outwards, as if bending away, like the stalk of a plant towards the sun. His fingernails were so long it was a little gross, and Saph often plotted on how to get him to trim them - he refused, claiming they were useful. Ever practical, ever dexterous, ever busy.

It was Minho's hands that were deceptive. His hands were a little too large for his body, the knuckles too wide, like a puppy who hadn't quite grown into his paws. His nails were wide and flat, even, and he did not bite them, though he did allow Saph to cut them. It was the steadiness, the symmetry of his fingers that surprised Newt. Minho was anything but even. But his palms were as perfectly even in their lines and callouses as the Walls -definitely different, but with the undeniable sameness, the parallelism that was haunting. Newt watched Minho work down the stream, his hands busy at work, when Hedy answered, interrupting his thoughts.

Hedy looked up from the clothes she'd been scrubbing – Alice's old socks. "About what?"

He shot her a winning smile. Or at least, what he hoped could pass off as one. Deciding to not beat around the bush, he said, bluntly: "Alice also can't go out there because she hasn't got a buddy. _So_—"

"Oh, no," Hedy knew exactly what was coming, read it in the pleading lines of his charming expression. "Don't—"

"If Alice and Minho go together – he's in the best shape of all of us – I'm alone—"

"Alice _isn't_ going," Hedy said emphatically. "So you and Minho will still buddy up—"

"If there's any trouble, Minho'll take care of her."

He was pleading, and she wondered if he really believed Alice was capable or if Minho put him up to it, or if Alice had. Regardless, she wasn't having it.

Minho, who was a few yards away, scrubbing and talking to Nick, would hear if they spoke any louder. For now, he seemed to not be paying attention. Grabbing her chance to speak freely and glaring at Newt, she said, in an acidic whisper: "Fucking _Minho_ can hardly take care of himself. He's got a big mouth and I don't trust him in a potentially dangerous situation like that. There could be other people, other meadows, other _Alice_ is a _chickenshit_. She's _not_—"

"She's set on going, and nobody but you is gonna stop her." Newt said frankly. Hearing the prophecy from Newt – not even he would help her, he somehow agreed with Minho – she sighed. It wasn't like she could restrain her.

"And you want _me_ to go with you."

He flashed a slightly crooked grin, dimples hopping into place. "Will ya? You're in the best shape, after me and Minho. Nick won't do, and Saph would be worse than Alice."

It was true, she realized, though she kept her face impassive. Nick was sturdy and strong, but he was not quick. If there was anything out there, which was a distinct possibility, Nick wouldn't be quick enough to get out of there. "One time," she warned him. "I swear on whoever sent us here that if anything happens to Alice, your ass is grass." It was an utterly empty threat – Hedy didn't even try to hug anyone, let alone touch them with malicious intentions. But she _would_ make them shovel the goat shit.

Clapping broke out behind her, and Minho, still clapping, grinned and stood up, having been listening the entire time and pretending not to. "See!" he crowed, looking smug and triumphant. "Knew you'd come around."

"You're an idiot," she ignored him and looked away, walking back up to set the clothes to dry.

"But I'm an idiot who got my way," he grinned victoriously, jogging up in front of her so she had to look at his smug _shuck_ face.

Even Nick was fighting a smile. "C'mon."

The four of them wandered back to where Tim sat with Saph and Alice – the latter of whom was looking antsy, hopping from foot to foot and humming along with Saph. Bemused, Tim was watching them, as if they were some sort of alien species.

They ate, quickly, with Hedy and Alice mostly pushing food around on their plates. The former because she was miserably mentally preparing, and the latter because she was close to bursting into tears she was so frightened.

By the time they were ready, the gates had been open for perhaps an hour. The sun had yet to fully climb over the hugely high Wall, and Newt and Hedy walked towards the southernmost opening, while Alice and Minho headed north. Tim and Nick went to see those two off, while Saph followed Hedy and Newt, a few steps behind.

"Are you ready?" Newt asked, clapping a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Looking up at the taller boy, she scowled, letting him know exactly how ready she was. He only chuckled. "The rule'll be stay to the right, and we'll see what happens. That way, if we hit any trouble, we can just trace our steps back."

"Make sure y'all make it back before the Walls close," Saph warned. Nodding, Hedy realized that the boisterous girl was as hesitant as she, though she did not voice the thought. "That's the only rule, for sure. They've been open for 'bout an hour."

Of course. It was impossible to miss the roaring of the moving Walls, even if they'd been used to it. And Tim's reaction had woken all of them up anyway.

"If we hit any trouble, I'm leaving Newt, so no need to worry about me," she replied blithely to Saph, not even looking at him. "I'm tough, look at me." It was pronounced with more bravado than she felt.

A flick of a knife caught her attention an she turned to see it – the blade was dwarfed by his large hands, but it was sharp and shining. "Don't worry," he said confidently. "We hit any bloody trouble, we always have this."

"Very macho," Saph replied sarcastically. "I'm sure my butter knife'll be real useful against the screaming wildebeests and the aliens coming for your organs."

"Stay within ten feet of me at all times." Hedy commanded him, but Saph looked up at her, gently holding her back.

"Hey, Gorgeous," her voice was reproving. "Alice isn't the coward you think she is, either," Saph said it softly, brown eyes kind. "She's four times as scared as you, 'n she's still doing the same work and livin' the same life. Keep that in mind before you write her off, a'ight?"

Startled, Hedy nodded, trying to process that. Turning away, Saph waited, waving. "Wish I had a bottle of champagne to crack against this ship, see y'all off." Suddenly mischievous, she reared back and tapped Hedy and Newt squarely on their asses, making them jump.

Newt only chuckled, and Hedy, too startled to do anything but blink and fight the amused smile that tugged at the left side of her mouth, and the two of them broke into a steady run, towards the Walls and away from the safety of the Meadow and the comfort of Saph's homey aura.


	4. Meg

The satisfying smack of cheap plastic against concrete slapped in his ears in a steady rhythm. Each step was measured, even, kept symmetrical and paced by his determination and the cool creep of anxiety up his spine. Constantly checking to make sure Alice was panting only a few feet behind him, as if something would fly from above them and scoop her away, he remained resolutely ahead, leading the way with a surety he did not feel, Hedy's warning echoing through his mind as his legs carried him through the immense concrete halls.

_Protect Alice_.

As long as they stayed to the left, as long as he checked both ways of each corridor they turned down – like a little kid, looking both ways before crossing a crowded street – as long as Alice desperately panted like a chihuahua chasing labrador, he'd keep his promise. As long as they stayed in the Maze and as long as they were afraid and trapped and had no memories, he'd keep it. Minho kept his promises, and he didn't believe in leaving jobs half-done. The younger girl was under his care now, and he immediately adopted the feeling of an older sibling – caring and exasperated, though he'd never trade it for anything and wouldn't trust anyone else with the job.

Really, it was his fault for being a chickenshit. He didn't want to be alone just as much as he understood Hedy's insistence that Alice wasn't strong enough, wasn't fit enough, was too young and small and all of the reasons that made Alice the kind of person who needed to be coddled and protected instead of thrown into a strange, surreal mess that felt like an art show come to life or a science experiment or a reality TV show.

Craning his neck to see her jogging behind him, face fixed into a terrified pout, sweat dripping from her temple, Minho called for them to stop – quietly, still nervous that the next corner would hold danger.

"Saph was righter than we thought. Plain and simple, it's a fuc—_shucking_ maze." He corrected himself, not knowing why he was so willing to go along with her stupid censorship. Probably to hear her giggle. He loved her laugh, surprised and squawky, cheerful in the otherwise shitty situation they'd landed in. Maybe the brotherly feelings weren't as new as he told himself, but to admit it would be too sappy to even conceive of.

Her eyes widened with fear, as if she hadn't figured it out herself, and immediately misunderstood his implication. "So we're… _lost_?"

Alice was a squeaker.

While he enjoyed her laughter, her terror grated on his nerves in a manner Saph would refer to as "unkind". Rolling his eyes, he spelled it out for her. "No, we aren't freakin' _lost_, because I'm not an _idiot_. But, just because I can get us back, doesn't mean we can get _out_ of here. We have no idea how huge this place is, no compass, no maps, no nothing. I don't even know how quickly I can run a mile."

He didn't ask her if she had been keeping track of their location, if she was still terrified. Every answer he ever needed from her was written over her face, printed across her expression like a tattoo. There was no subtlety with Alice.

For the first time, he noticed her shaking.

She was always twitching, moving, never still. Blinking too much, jiggling her leg, folding her hands, twisting her fingers, twisting her expression, biting her lips or fingernails, bobbing her head. He had noticed it before, but now that there was no background, just Alice and ivy and stone for miles, partially hidden in the shadows, it was all the more prominent. He remembered the idea of crying, the movies and books he couldn't remember, the descriptions of bottom lips trembling with emotion. It seemed wrong, like anyone who'd ever thought that or written it or scripted it had never truly seen anyone crying with real fear. Alice's bottom lip was steady – it was her _chin_ that shook, her jaw that chattered, so hard he could practically hear her teeth shattering, as if she were cold, even though they were sweaty and hot.

Minho was nervous, but Alice was about to klunk her pants. He could see it easily. Not just from the way she was twisting one leg around the other. Probably had forgotten to pee, too, and if he told her to just take a whizz here, she'd cry from embarrassment – no place to hide, and he would never wait around the corner for her to finish pissing. Too dangerous.

"Let's go back," he sighed, not even bothering to hide his reluctance. He wished he'd gone with Newt after all. Newt would share in his sudden depression, would know what he meant without his having to explain every detail. It made it harder, expressing it concisely. Vague euphemisms felt easier.

There was _nothing_. For however long, there could be more nothing. And with Alice, who forgot water, and was about to burst with the only fluids she had left in her, he couldn't explore it. He only hoped Newt and Hedy were doing better, and that maybe they'd find something – anything – that would help them figure out what the hell was happening.

x

"Shit, you're fast," Hedy wheezed, gulping down some of the water she'd packed. Leaning against the wall, she looked at Newt, who had a huge grin on his face.

"Feelin' a bit out of shape?"

"Stop gloating," she grouched.

Newt's hair, long and slicked back with its grease, shone all the more with his sweat. His expression was eager, excited, as if he'd been waiting for ages just to be able to move freely. In the Meadow, or the Glade, as Nick insisted it be called, he seemed as closed in as the walls. Claustrophobic. But out here, he seemed to stand at his full height, as if unafraid that he'd run out of room, as if he were free to stretch and grow.

Eyeing him, she measured him. His height seemed somehow imposing in a way it never had previously. He was the biggest person she could remember, tall and broad and muscular. While he looked great, ready to go on for miles, she felt like _ass_. Her shirt was stuck to her chest, which was covered in sweat. The muscles in her legs were throbbing, and her heart was thudding through her chest. Not in a healthy burn, but in a manner that made her feel as though her heart was being held in a chokehold.

"So what do you think?"

Enormous walls continued on forever. She estimated that they'd run nearly three miles, though she could be completely off. Early on, Newt had them break the rule of staying to the left, and they'd left a trail of vines to lead them back to the opening.

"Definitely a bloody maze," he cracked.

"I _mean_ about being out here." Crossing her arms and glaring up at him, she waited for his answer.

Hedy was reasonable, as she'd discovered in her time in the Meadow. She could be swayed, be talked to, was willing to admit her wrongs. They were outside the Meadow, in the very place she had least wanted to go, and Alice was out there – and as far as she knew, there was nothing here but a maze.

"We should explore more, don't ya think?"

"We should head back, before the Walls close," she prepared to argue, but he shook his head wearily.

"No, I don't mean right buggin' now," he explained exasperatedly. "I'm answerin' your question. I meant, we keep comin' out here, mappin' the place. So we can figure out a way out."

Nodding appreciatively, she looked at him, trying to find holes in what he was saying. "How exactly do we map it, though? It's not like any of us are cartographers. Also, we need more paper and pens."

"We'll ask Savvy," he decided. "She's always the gal with a plan."

Raising a brow, Hedy felt a half a smile twisting on her lips. "Savvy?"

"She's damn smart. Smarter than any of us, even you, that's for sure. Allie, too, though you won't admit it."

"What? Alice can't do anything that isn't spelled out for her," Hedy contradicted.

"Scared witless, for sure, but has anyone here been as useful as her? 'Sides from Savvy. Always willing to work, up before anyone, tryin' her best."

A sudden wash of guilty flushed over her. All she'd done the night before was insult the girl. "She tries hard in everything she does," Hedy admitted, realizing it as she said it. "I guess everyone could take a leaf from her book."

"Good that," Newt said with satisfaction. "C'mon, you look a bloody mess, and I could use a good bathing m'self. My armpits stink worse than Nick's rotten feet."

"Gross," Hedy replied, with a small smile, and they followed their trail back. As they did though, a vague memory popped into her mind. Hansel and Gretel, following the trail of breadcrumbs.

x

Saph stood resolutely, waiting for the first sight of the others as they came through the Walls.

She was extremely patient. It was a trait she didn't expect to have. Though she and all the others were still unsure of themselves, feeling out their personalities, some things fell easily into place. Minho was a smartass. Alice was a worrier. Hedy was a stoic. Nick was also a stoic, but more of a grump. Newt was a diplomat.

As for her, she was a nurturer.

All of them acted on instinct, and that made everything about them much clumsier and much more genuine. Minho didn't quite know how to be serious, Alice didn't know how to play, Hedy was argumentative, Nick was easily irritated and unafraid of showing it, and Newt, whenever nobody was looking, went off by himself and sat, thinking, with a tired set to his shoulders and a hung neck. They were as naïve as children, able to process their situation but forgetting their table manners or easy modes of conversation. There were strange silences, brooding nights, angry days – and Saph did her best to calm those times, to add routine and ease. With Tim, it was too earlier to guess at anything but his shyness, and even that could just be his newness, his fear.

It begged the question – were they the same as they had been before? Was personality intrinsic? Was Saph really a cranky control freak and was Nick really a carefree social butterfly? Were their personalities before, if they were different, their true selves, or were the personas they'd developed here who they truly were. Fluidity was everything, Saph decided, and all change, if not good, was needed to keep the world turning. Chaos meant there'd be order, somewhere, and even if everything felt chaotic and strange now, they could manage to create order out of that.

Another thing - she didn't remember learning to cook. She didn't know how she knew that foods with vitamin C went best with foods that contained iron. For the life of her, she didn't know how she managed to handle a knife so well, or how to turn a few piece-of-klunk ingredients into a fully-fledged meal, to keep them all from becoming malnourished and dying of anemia before they even knew why in the world they'd been sent to such a beautiful hell.

Slowly, though, her magic was working, no matter if it were black or white. Alice's anxiety wasn't as severe as it had been the first three weeks. Minho had begun to thicken, his skinny limbs and short body growing more fully into his wide frame, bones slowly becoming saturated with fat and muscle. The circles beneath Nick's eyes had begun to ease. Newt's hair shone – not just from the oils, but with health, no longer limp and straw-like – and she saw Hedy slowly beginning to eat more and more, as if she was gaining the girl's trust, as if Hedy no longer expected to be poisoned or to find the food disgusting.

She didn't know what had happened before. Really, she wasn't sure if she _wanted_ to know. But standing alone with Tim digging in the garden, Nick cleaning up animal klunk for the slowly growing garden, and the others running around in the Maze, putting all of her accomplishments into words still didn't help her feeling of utter uselessness.

x

"It's a maze," Newt affirmed.

They'd always spoken of outside the Walls like some sort of anomaly – which it was – but to have answers, even such a small, basic one, felt comforting.

The four runners were gulping down a thin soup Saph had made, relishing in the flavors of the tiny carrots Nick and Hedy and Tim had harvested earlier.

Hedy wolfed down the soup, drinking it and finishing before anyone else. Tim and Nick stood a few feet away – they'd already eaten.

"What's it like?" Tim asked, eyes wide.

"Dead bodies, treasure chests, hot mermaid chicks, the usual." Minho said offhandedly, chugging more water.

Saph cackled and poured them all a second serving, sniggering to Minho about how he should've lured them back for 'dinner and a show', but Nick was serious.

"Tell me what you saw."

"A fucking labyrinth," Hedy answered witheringly. At Alice's glare, she amended: "…_Shucking_ maze." It fit. A shuck. A husk of a thing. Devoid of meaning, until they could figure it out.

"Well, what else other than that?" Saph asked, scraping the pot to pour the final bits into Tim's bowl. "Anything else?"

"I think we should start mapping it," Newt said, leaning back.

Immediately, Minho latched onto the idea. "Hell – shuck yeah?" He tried, for Alice, who giggled.

"Good that," Nick said impatiently. "But give us some freaking—"

"The walls stay the same height," Hedy interrupted. "It's a maze, with ivy growing everywhere. Every place we saw today looked the same, and we ran at least five miles today. Speaking of which, there's no way I'm walking at all tomorrow. We need new shoes. My blisters have callouses."

As if they needed proof, she held up the old tennis shoes she'd worn – the sole was nearly flapping off.

"Why don't we send a note down the Box?" Minho asked smugly, and she sucked her teeth at him.

"Why don't you stop rubbing that in my face every two seconds?" she asked, irritated. "Anyway," she turned towards Saph, Tim, and Nick, turning her back from Minho and Alice and Newt. "Newt thinks if we map the place out, we can escape."

"Maybe," he cautioned evenly from behind her. "Let's not be gettin' ahead of ourselves."

"Well, if it's a maze, that means there's a way out," Minho reasoned. "So we're not getting ahead of anything."

"We'll find it!" Alice declared. Then she turned to Minho. "I promise not to do so badly next time, either!"

A high pitch shriek followed her statement, as Minho gripped her around the shoulders and rubbed a noogie into her scalp.

"That actually feels kind of good," she said when he finished. "A bit like a backrub, only on your head."

"Need one?" Saph asked lewdly, winking at her. "I've got magic fingers. You seen what I can do to a bit of salad, imagine what I could—"

"Ew," Nick scowled, holding up a hand. "None of that pervy shit, either of you." He pointed at Minho, for good measure.

Hedy smiled at their mirroring expressions of mock offense and shock.

"How dare you—"

"Calling me a _perv_—"

"Ain't like it innit true, though," Saph turned to Minho.

"Maybe about _you_—"

"If it's about me, then you're in too – just ask Gorgeous."

"I'm right here, ask away—" Minho preened.

Newt burst out laughing at their antics, joining in with Alice's high-pitched giggle. Nick and Tim remained self-contained, though both looked amused. While Nick's reticence was to keep from encouraging them, Tim's was insecurity. He didn't quite feel like one of them yet. Laughing along with strangers is often difficult, Hedy knew.

"C'mon, lemme show you something I did the other day!" Minho said suddenly, loud voice breaking through the cheer, excited with the sudden urgency of memory.

Nick looked up. "Whadja do?" he looked suspicious. "No games, Minho, or I'll noogie you bald."

"I wanna see!" Alice complained. "What is it?"

"It's over here, c'mon," he said, standing and stretching. A few bones cracked when he did so, and Hedy winced.

"Gross."

"You think everything is gross, so slim it."

The seven of them trooped over to the Wall with him, in the open section across from their tiny, pitiful 'pasture'. It was the most open expanse of land they had in the Meadow, but the least used. It seemed sort of barren. They stopped at the wall, and they all stared as Minho proudly posed next to his creation.

"Bloody hell," Newt began to chuckle, massaging a hand over his mouth to hide his enormous grin.

"What the hell is that catastrophe." Hedy blinked at the letters.

**MINHO,** written crookedly in enormous print, ate up the wall.

"I think it's a great idea!" Saph decided, clapping. "All of us should write it. Tim, you do your name too."

She took the tools from Minho, but the S and the P gave her difficulty. The end result wasn't quite as bad as Minho's, though, and they all took turns.

Minho's name was nearly three feet long, with awkward spacing. Saph's was nearly as big, right below his. Nick had sized his more appropriately right next to Saph's, with Newt's the highest and Alice's parallel from his, since she insisted Newt do it for her. Tim's was angled oddly downwards, the letters falling, almost like a crossword puzzle. Hedy had chosen to write her name inside of Minho's giant O. Otherwise, it'd be too far away and look out of place from the next boxes of the other names, and she didn't want to symbolically separate herself from them. Or was that too sensitive?

Minho sent her a sidelong glance. "Ruining my masterpiece?"

"If you hadn't taken up so much, room, I wouldn't have had to," She shot back, quirking a grin up at him. "Besides, it's cute. We're all friends, here."

It was Alice who voiced what they were all wondering. "Do you think someone else will come up in the Box?"

Tim, who had just as much memory as they did when they'd woken up, shrugged. They'd discussed this before, but thinking about additions to their mural made it feel more real and pressing.

It was Nick who said it. "I'm guessing yeah… and I have a theory."

Unlike Minho's theories, she generally agreed with Nick. His thoughts tended to be less radical. So she listened, waiting as he hesitated.

"I think, since there's an uneven amount of guys and girls, that the next stringbean—"

"Greenbean," Saph corrected in mock offense. "If ya gotta mimic good slang, make sure you do it properly."

"That the next Greenie is gonna be a chick."

There was a beat of silence, until Saph grinned salaciously. "_Excellent_."

"None of that pervy klunk," Minho mocked.

"So throw me in the pit," Saph answered with a wink. "Can't help it, the ladies love me and I love the ladies—"

"I s'pose we'll just have to see?" Tim offered nervously.

"Good idea!" Alice smiled radiantly at him.

"I'm going to bed," Nick asked, suddenly sounding irritated by the conversation. They all ignored him – it was second nature to them now. His mood swings were often unprecedented – or at least, as far as the rest of them knew, they were. He did not share what he thought very often, and they did not understand what he was feeling. Most emotions passed beneath the surface, his expression remaining cool and implacable.

Eventually, they all followed his lead and went to bed. And they woke up, and they worked. Oftentimes, they ran. Mostly, they waited, lulled into a sense of security. Mostly Minho and Newt went out, alone, and sometimes Hedy did too. Rarely did Alice go out – Minho wanted her to get stronger first, and Hedy wanted her to become more sensible.

The routine continued for weeks, but it was a sort of waiting game. Trapped in limbo until the new month came, with a new Box and a new Greenbean.

Tim discovered his personality, bit by bit. He remained quiet and hardworking, both traits that were highly appreciated, but had joined in on Saph's musical talent. He whistled, often. He whistled while gardening - it was what he was good at, always offering special tips or sudden ideas on how to make their crops grow larger or more plentiful, and a blessing both to their bellies and to their minds - he whistled while cleaning or washing, and he whistled when he '_klunked_' as Minho and Alice insisted it was now called.

The Meadow was rarely silent anymore.

"Nobody in this Glade ever gets any sleep, thanks to the two of you," Nick said rudely, once, but Saph had only begun to yell random syllables, a doremifasollati. A speedy return to humming was made after he apologized, first to Tim, who was still a little intimidated by all of them but Saph and Alice.

And out of the Box, at the end of the long month, was a confused and terrified greenie, who called herself _Meg_.

* * *

><p>Meg is named after Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.<p> 


End file.
